Guide 01 · PACE plan
The APEGA PACE plan, section by section
Independent guide. PaceTracker is not affiliated with APEGA. Requirements can change — always confirm against APEGA’s official documents, linked at the end.
Since November 1, 2025, every practising APEGA-registered professional creates and follows a Personal Annual Competency Evaluation (PACE) plan: a written, self-managed document describing how you will maintain competence in your area of practice. Three things frame everything else about it. The plan is yours — you do not submit it to APEGA unless the Practice Review Board or APEGA staff request it, and APEGA does not approve PACE plans. You create a new plan every year, and revise it within the year if your role, responsibilities, or area of practice change enough that the existing plan no longer fits. And APEGA recommends keeping every previous version of your plans, because a review can reach back into historic years.
APEGA publishes an official PACE plan template (DOCX) and recommends it because it covers every requirement of the CPD practice standard. Any format is acceptable, though — a self-developed plan or another organization’s template can work, as long as the required content is there. What the template cannot do is explain itself. That is what this guide is for: the seven sections, one by one, with what to actually write in each.
01 Personal informationRecommended
Your name, APEGA ID, and contact information. Thirty seconds of work — its purpose is simply to make the document self-identifying if it is ever pulled from your records years later.
02 Areas of practiceRequired
A description of your current area or areas of practice, plus any future areas you are pursuing. Include your job title, employer, duties, responsibilities, and industry. This section earns its required status because it drives the rest of the plan: the risks you weigh, the skills you pick, and the activities you choose all follow from what you actually do. Write it concretely — “structural design of steel connections for industrial buildings” gives you more to work with than “structural engineering.”
03 Competence evaluationRecommended
An honest self-assessment of your experience, skills, and knowledge across the four CPD categories: Technical; Regulatory; Ethical Practice; and Communication, Management, and Leadership. APEGA suggests weighing five risk factors as you do it: how much supervision you receive or provide; how much you interact with other licensed professionals in related areas; the pace of technological change in your field; changes in codes, standards, regulations, and societal expectations; and the consequences if your work fails. The logic is explicit in the guideline: the higher the risks you identify, the more CPD you should plan to address them. There is no score and no pass mark — the value is the reflection.
04 Skills and knowledgeRequired
The skills and knowledge you intend to maintain or develop this period. Prioritize what benefits your practice and what mitigates the risks you identified — with particular attention, in APEGA’s words, to the public interest and the environment. Keep the list short and real: three to six items you can actually link activities to beats a dozen aspirations. Each entry should answer one question: why this, given what I do?
05 Completed CPD activitiesRequired
The record of what you actually did. Each year this must include at least one Technical activity and at least one from another category — Regulatory, Ethical Practice, or Communication, Management, and Leadership. Beyond that minimum, the right quantity depends on your practice and your evaluation in section 03. For each activity, record the title, and ideally the organizer, date, and duration. Two more things are required, and they are where most plans fall short. First, a written explanation of how each activity contributed to your competence, connecting it to the skills you identified in section 04. Second, supporting documentation as evidence: registration confirmations, course certificates, presentation outlines, meeting agendas, even calendar entries or emails for informal activities.
Two boundaries worth knowing. The mandatory learning modules assigned in myAPEGA are a separate component of the CPD requirements — they cannot be counted toward the activity minimum. And routine professional practice on its own may not be enough to maintain competence: work counts when it goes beyond your routine, and APEGA expects additional CPD activities alongside it. The full annual picture — modules, minimums, declaration, and reviews — is covered in our requirements guide.
06 Peer input and reviewRecommended
A review of your plan with another licensed professional — a Responsible Member, supervisor, peer, or mentor, inside or outside your organization. The point is an outside perspective: a blind spot in your own competence is exactly the kind of risk you cannot self-assess. Document that the review happened and what came out of it. The reviewer is not expected to confirm that you completed the recorded activities — their role is input on the plan, not sign-off on the record.
07 Sign-offRecommended
Once your completed activities are recorded, sign and date the plan by your CPD due date — the same date as your annual renewal. The signature marks the moment the plan stops being a working document and becomes part of your record. From there it goes into your files with its evidence, ready if APEGA ever asks for it. The annual declaration itself happens in myAPEGA, and only within the last two months of your CPD period.
— Through the year, not at the end
The sections above are a structure, not a sequence to complete in one sitting the week before your due date. The plans that hold up are built through the year: the written explanation drafted while the course is still fresh, the certificate attached the day it arrives, the plan revised the month your role changes — not reconstructed from memory in a November evening. If a reviewer ever reads your plan, the difference shows.
— Quick answers
Does a PACE plan have to use APEGA’s official template?
No. APEGA publishes a template and recommends it because it covers every requirement of the practice standard, but any format is acceptable — a self-developed plan or another organization’s template works, as long as the required content is there.
Which sections of a PACE plan are required?
Three of the seven: areas of practice (02), skills and knowledge to maintain or develop (04), and completed CPD activities (05). The other four are recommended — and worth doing, since a review measures plans against the guideline’s best practices, not just the bare requirements.
Does APEGA approve PACE plans?
No. APEGA does not approve PACE plans. The plan is self-managed: you create it, sign it, and keep it in your records with its evidence, producing it only if the Practice Review Board or APEGA staff request it.
When should a PACE plan be revised?
You create a new plan every year, and revise it within the year as soon as your role, responsibilities, or area of practice change enough that the existing plan no longer fits. Keep every previous version — a review can reach back into historic years.
This structure is what PaceTracker is built around
The seven sections with their Required and Recommended flags, the written explanation on every activity, evidence attached in a private vault, and version history by design: signing freezes a plan version at the database level, so every signed version stays exactly as it was — the record-keeping APEGA recommends, made structural. One audit pack PDF per period, records stored in Canada (Montréal).
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